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Thick printed circuit boards (PCBs) over 4 mm thick present both a challenge and an opportunity for the copper plating industry. The opportunity comes in the form of a niche but growing market, with an estimated growth rate of 3-4 percent per year, and a market size of $1 billion for thick PCBs. The primary end application is in communications, with growth of 5G infrastructure set to take off dramatically by 2020. Huawei released the industry’s first 5G slicing router at MWC 2017 in Barcelona in February, and Qualcomm has announced plans to release commercial chips for 5G services in 2018, and competitors are likely to follow suit.